The cosmopolitan kitchen : Mouhalabieh with sour cherries

It seems like summer has finally arrived in Paris, that’s the perfect excuse for this refreshing dessert. Mouhalabieh is a well-known dessert from Lebanon, a simple cream perfumed with precious orange blossom flower. In its traditional form it’s served with pistachios or even rose syrup, but today I’m proposing a fruity-er association inspired by our recent trip to Andalusia. In the countryside around Granada, the cherry trees were heavy with fruits and we might have scavenged quite a few, and also bought them on a regular basis at the market (in Paris, cherries are a pricey treat, but not Spain). When I came back to Paris and went to the market, I still craved them and couldn’t pass the opportunity to buy a batch of sour cherries. These particular ones were commonplace in my childhood, but remain quite elusive here, so I learned to buy them whenever they’re on offer. Slowly cooked and paired with the cream, they form a brilliant sweet and sour association.

Mouhalabieh aux griottes

serves 5 small portions

Put the milk in a bowl, warm it up a little and dissolve the white sugar inside.

Put the cornstarch in a saucepan, add a little bit of milk and whisk until smooth. Add the rest of the milk.

Put on medium heat and whisk regularly until it starts to thicken (it should take five minutes or so, if it doesn’t just turn the heat up a little bit). Depending on how thick you want you cream you can remove it from the heat right away or wait a couple minutes more.

Turn the heat off and add the orange blossom water. Mix and transfer into small cups. Cover and put in the fridge for at least two hours.

Pit the cherries. Put them with coconut oil and panela sugar in a saucepan on low heat. The amount of sugar depends on your taste and the tartness of the cherries, and you can adjust it during the process. The idea is to achieve a consistence that’s between compote and marmalade, with very little liquid. Watch it regularly, but it has to cook for at least 20-30 minutes. Once it’s done leave at room temperature.

When ready to serve, put a big tablespoon of the sour cherries on the cream (don’t put to much to avoid overpowering the perfume of the cream).

A note on the ingredients

Orange blossom water : I bought mine in Lebanon, on Al-Shouf Cedar Reserve (whose eshop sadly doesn’t seem to work), and it’s exceptional, nothing like those I bought in France before. My guess is that you have to look for the artisanal kind, and since my bottle will soon be empty, I will have to find a reliable reseller!

White sugar and panela sugar : At home, I almost exclusively use panela sugar, which is the unrefined kind. All brands are different so you have to taste them to find your favourite. For the cream I use white sugar though, first to keep it white, but mostly because the caramel taste of panela sugar would hide the perfume of the orange blossom water.

Sour cherries : If you’re not familiar with sour cherries, you should know that these tart varieties are mostly meant to be cooked and work marvels in pies and crumbles. If you’re lucky enough to find the almost black wild cherries, then you’re even more lucky, these ones are a laundry nightmare, but taste and look fantastic.